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One Dead Preacher by Tony Lindsay


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One Rainy Day in May


Mark Z. Danielewski - 2015
    The Familiar (Volume 1) ranges from Mexico to Southeast Asia, from Venice, Italy, to Venice, California, with nine lives hanging in the balance, each called upon to make a terrifying choice. They include a therapist-in-training grappling with daughters as demanding as her patients; an ambitious East L.A. gang member contracted for violence; two scientists in Marfa, Texas, on the run from an organization powerful beyond imagining; plus a recovering addict in Singapore summoned at midnight by a desperate billionaire; and a programmer near Silicon Beach whose game engine might unleash consequences far exceeding the entertainment he intends. At the very heart, though, is a twelve-year-old girl named Xanther who one rainy day in May sets out with her father to get a dog, only to end up trying to save a creature as fragile as it is dangerous . . . which will change not only her life and the lives of those she has yet to encounter, but this world, too—or at least the world we think we know and the future we take for granted.(With full-color illustrations throughout.)

Vanishing Acts


Jodi Picoult - 2005
    Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes the world as she knows it." In shock and confusion, Delia must sift through the truth - even when it jeopardizes her life and the lives of those she loves. What happens when you learn you are not who you thought you were? When the people you've loved and trusted suddenly change before your eyes? When getting your deepest wish means giving up what you've always taken for granted? Vanishing Acts explores how life - as we know it - might not turn out the way we imagined; how doing the right thing could mean doing the wrong thing; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat.

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth


Christopher Scotton - 2015
    In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky. Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

The Little Friend


Donna Tartt - 2002
    The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.

Other Men's Wives


Freddie Lee Johnson III - 2005
    The good life wasn't handed to him on a silver platter, though. Growing up in the Cleveland ghetto, his father was shot by a drug addict, he worked the streets to help his sister through college, and he made his fair share of enemies along the way.Yet not even his tough upbringing prepared him for the mysterious DVD that showed up on his doorstep, its contents revealing an explicit sexual encounter between his wife and another man, whose face was purposely blurred. Sierra's betrayal is heart wrenching, and Denmark's on the warpath to find out the identity of the man behind it. One thing's sure: It's someone close to him.Suddenly everyone is suspect, especially his two best buddies, and he'll stop at nothing to exact his revenge-even if it means sleeping with their wives to get it. But when Denmark takes justice into his own hands, he discovers a truth even more shocking than his wife's infidelity. . . .In this gritty revenge tale, Freddie Lee Johnson III takes us into the mind of a man consumed with grief and rage. Full of jump-off-the-page characters and fast-paced drama, Other Men's Wives is an explosive ride fueled by love, lust, and deceit.

The Real Hoodwives of Detroit


India - 2012
    Sometimes referred to as the Murder Capital for the huge murder rate that never ceases to surprise us, The Murder Mitten, or The Dirty Glove for the state’s shape on the U.S. map. Detroit is home to many; scholars, rappers, athletes, parents, and concerned citizens, but the streets belong to those in the underworld; addicts, dealers, and the women who help run the show from behind the scenes…The Real Hoodwives of Detroit! No! You won’t see these ladies on any television show, but you will see them make appearances in court for their mans’ hearing, or at the county jail on visiting day. You might even catch them riding shotgun, with a nine tucked in their Fendi bag…waiting to pop off and protect their men at any cost. And of course, they make appearances in the hood, twenty-four seven…three hundred and sixty-five days of the year! Follow Nikki, Tonya, Chloe, Mina, and Gucci as they ride you through Detroit, one city-block at a time. Watch as the tales of the black and dangerous unfold right before your eyes. In Detroit, only the raw and real survive - living to see another day. These streets are known for breaking the weak and leaving them helpless, they aren’t made for everybody! Scared? You should be….WELCOME TO DETROIT!

City on Fire


Garth Risk Hallberg - 2015
    Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city's great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown's punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter, Richard, and his idealistic neighbor, Jenny, - and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year's Eve.The mystery, as it reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power, will open up even the loneliest-seeming corners of the crowded city. And when the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives with be changed forever.City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock 'n' roll, about what people need from each other in order to live... and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.

Ruth's Redemption


Marlene Banks - 2012
    Bo is also a man of God and widower whose life is destined to change when he meets the proud and hard-hearted slave girl, Ruth.Ruth has known nothing but servitude and brutality since being separated from her mother at age thirteen. Purchased and sold primarily for breeding, her heart is filled with resentment and bitterness.  Ruth wants no part of Bo’s Godly devotion.  Yet Bo is unlike any man she’s known and her experiences with him will leave her forever changed.A gripping slave era novel, Ruth’s Redemption is a story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of the Nat Turner Rebellion in Tidewater, Virginia, this novel shines the light of God’s unconditional love in the darkness of a culture’s cruel socially accepted inhumanity.

The Last Time They Met


Anita Shreve - 2001
    Seen through the eyes of young Linda Fallon and the young man who loves her.Anita Shreve, the bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife, returns with a dazzling new novel about love, forgiveness, and paths not followed. Linda Fallon encounters her former lover, Thomas Janes, at a literary festival where both have been invited to give readings from their work. It has been years since their paths crossed, and in that time Thomas has become a kind of literary legend. His renown is enhanced by his elusiveness; for most of the past decade, he has remained in seclusion following a devastating loss. This is no chance meeting. Thomas learned that Linda was reading at the festival and chose this moment to reestablish contact with a woman he passionately pursued years earlier. Their affair was disastrous, and a turning point in both their lives. Neither the intensity of their relationship nor the damage it did has ever been far from his memory. From the moment they speak, The Last Time They Met unfolds the story of Linda and Thomas in an extraordinary way: it travels back into their past, bypassing layers of memory and interpretation to present their earlier encounters with unshakable immediacy. In Africa, when Linda and Thomas were twenty-seven, and in Massachusetts, when they were in high school, the novel re-creates love at its exhilarating pinnacle - the kind of intense connection that becomes the true north against which all relationships are measured. Moving backward through time, The Last Time They Met traces the extraordinary resonance a single choice, even a single word, can have over the course of a lifetime. At the same time, the novel creates an almost unbearable mystery, a mystery that can only be understood fully in the novel's final pages, in the eyes of young Linda Fallon and the young man who loves her. With a master's control of phrase, observation, emotion, and character, Anita Shreve has written a beautiful and unforgettable exploration of intimacy, loss, and lifelong desire.

Baby Girl


Shavon Moore - 2009
    Fueled by her crooked grandfather s blood and her gold-digging grandmother s teachings, Kyla mastered the arts of manipulation and seduction at an early age. While other girls were learning simple addition and subtraction, Kyla was being trained to divide men from boys in hopes of multiplying her funds. As she propels through adolescence and into her teenaged years, Kyla s heartbreaking beauty and notorious sex appeal become her trademarks. The more attention she receives, the more she craves; and she seizes every opportunity to increase her status in her urban St. Louis community. Kyla truly believes that the world and everything in it is at her disposal. That is, until she meets Shard Phaylon, a suave and powerful young kingpin in the illegal drug trade. From the beginning, the mysterious Shard presents an alluring challenge that spoiled Kyla has never before had to face. In an effort to live up to her family name, she blindly and tirelessly pursues him and his many assets. Kyla s misguided affection quickly blossoms into complete devotion; and she soon finds herself acting as a witness and eventually, an accomplice in Shard s immoral and dangerous schemes. Her newfound love for him begins to eclipse her lifelong love for the Brown family, and she becomes completely torn between the two. Just when Kyla believes that she has her life all mapped out, though, she suddenly begins to unearth bizarre and unsettling clues about Shard s past and present. It is only after Shard commits the ultimate act of betrayal that Kyla discovers the disturbing truth about him and learns an even more disturbing truth about herself.

We Are the Brennans


Tracey Lange - 2021
    But it's not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions. Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family's pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together.In the vein of Mary Beth Keane's Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Tracey Lange's We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.

Restricted


Takerra Allen - 2001
    Reigning king of the streets Julez Payne traded in his banger for the briefcase, and couldn't be more content. And when he puts a ring on the pretty little finger of the irresistible Noelle, life seems to be perfect. Sounds too good to be true? That's because it is. Noelle's far from the ideal housewife and Julez secretly has his own battle of temptation that he's fighting in the dark. So when the mansion walls come tumbling down, all of the skeletons lurking in the closets come spilling out for all to see! And who's there to witness? Enter scene Slim and Jordin. This couple's had their share of rough times and things don't seem to be looking up. Fresh out of prison, Slim struggles to stay on the straight and narrow while Jordin deals with her own insecurities and a hidden desire for the passion that Slim leaves her lacking. Praying for a miracle, Jordin hopes to live a life as lurid and luxurious as her gorgeous best friend Noelle and wealthy husband Julez. But when suppressed desires from the past resurface, Jordin finds out in a Restricted world, everyone has ulterior motives, even her! This sophisticated novel gives you your own personal magnifying glass, allowing you to take a close look into the lives of four dynamic heroines who are all bound by their lies, restricted by desires, and freed by indulgence...The soaps have been revamped and brought to life in the pages of this love thriller! Warning: Proceed with caution, you are now Unrestricted!

Everything Matters!


Ron Currie Jr. - 2009
    Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories-his anxious mother; his brother, a cocaine addict turned pro-baseball phenomenon; his exalted father, whose own mortality summons Junior's best and worst instincts; and Amy, the love of Junior's life and a North Star to his journey through romance and heartbreak, drug-addled despair, and superheroic feats that could save humanity. While our recognizable world is transformed into a bizarre nation at endgame, where government agents conspire in subterranean bunkers, preparing citizens for emigration from a doomed planet, Junior's final triumph confounds all expectation, building to an astonishing and deeply moving resolution. Ron Currie, Jr., gets to the heart of character, and the voices who narrate this uniquely American tour de force leave an indelible, exhilarating impression.

A Hood Chick's Story Pt. 2


Lashonda Devaughn - 2010
    Five years has came and gone and Tiara tries desperately to bury her past baggage and focus on the future of raising her daughter. She tried patching up old wounds by blocking them out. Little did she know, it would all come back to haunt her. Her boyfriend Tony was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after serving only three years. Out for only two years, he tried helping Tiara and their child settle into a better life outside of the projects. But when his true colors surfaced Tiara finds herself stuck without a plan B. Cheating, lies, abuse and phony friends surround Tiara once again and she finds herself helpless. Will she finally find a way out of her constant cycle of dilemma's or settle for the same ole' street life? Continue to ride along on Tiara's journey through adulthood; find out if the madness ever ends.

The Wonder


Emma Donoghue - 2016
    An English nurse, Lib Wright, is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle - a girl said to have survived without food for months. Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.